On Resonance

Resonance, a word which has entered my vocabulary recently and rears its head seemingly more and more frequently with every passing day. 

In Vipassana I became aware of what I like to call a sort of body consciousness. An understanding of the nature of my body, of nature, the interaction of the two, of the phenomenon of this body, in this place, at this moment, as it is. A lot of what came up in my reality was tension. An overwhelming tension, inescapable tension in my shoulders which I tried to release through yet more pressure. The pain built. The fixation along with it. And then the technique was presented : the turning of the focused attention which had been honed for four days, inward, into the body, to the changing nature of reality, and the experience of this within the body. Within minutes of the practice of the technique I felt an immediate understanding, one which ripped straight through the unconscious presupposition upon which the entire myth of my identity and understanding of the body that held it was built.

What I knew in that moment, so clearly, which I had never even glimpsed consciously before was that my trying, my continual attempting; to be good, to do the right thing, be seen as responsible, fitting in, doing my part, towing the line, had been the underlying current driving every action and decision I made. I understood experientially and with such clarity that this unconscious drive, the striving was continually producing immense tension, a mental tension which pulled me out of presence and had manifest so deeply in my physical form. The pain in my shoulder was telling me that I did not know how to let go, to simply be, without the subconscious yet relentless trying. 

And so I continued to practice, to be fully present with the sensation in my body. To be patient with it, not clinging, not avoiding, a slow yet steady sensory scan of the body. Each sensation was given my full and curious attention, but it had to wait its turn. A spasm screaming out between the ribs in my back would have to wait for me to finish the leg I was on, then the entire front of my trunk, slowly, attentively, from base to neck and then back to the base of my spine upwards until I reached that spot. Only then it would have my undivided attention, consciousness, awareness, its moment in the spotlight and then it would be time to move on, with full acknowledgement & acceptance of every sensation, indiscriminate, equanimous. 

And so I came to really experience this body, this consciousness, and to really tap into a level of body awareness. What does my body want? If I sit perfectly still, with no desire, will the body move itself? Sometimes it does, twisting the neck, wringing the spine, rolling itself, opening channels & finding a path through stagnancy. 

In this journey with silence, music and dance have been profound companions. Music as a tool to measure, to quantify and to calibrate my own energy, the subtle frequency which is present and dance as a practice of being in a body and in intuitive response. To be silent with music, to be embodied and to respond to the experience without pretence, without desire but with radical presence and full permission for the intuitive to express itself has been a process of shedding, of unfurling layers of rigidity which have protected my small and separate sense of self.

Music, chanting and movement have thus become primary aspects of my personal & spiritual unfurling. Mirrors, metrics, tapping into the spring of what is alive in me, getting to know my personal frequency, how it changes, what is in resonance with it and what needs to be shed. This practice brings authenticity into clarity: not right or wrong, simply as the reality of the moment. In exploring the phenomenon of resonance, of a vibration which matches and amplifies, the truth is brought into light, in which it may be tended and expanded into communion.

"Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when the matching vibrations of another object increase the amplitude of an object's oscillations."

"Living Human cells have resonant frequencies - rates at which they will naturally oscillate if the conditions are right. This has been suspected for decades, but researchers have now measured what some of those frequencies are." New Scientist 2023

Miriam Webster: 
Resonance (n)

1    A    The quality or state of being resonant
      B  (1)    A vibration of large amplitude in a mechanical or electrical system caused by a relatively small periodic stimulus of the same or nearly the same period as the natural vibration period of the system
           (2)    The state of adjustmnet that produces resonance in a mechanical or electrical system

2     A    The intensification and enriching of a musical tone by supplementary vibration
       B    A quality imparted to voiced sounds by vibration in anatomical resonating chambers or cavities (such as the mouth or the nasal cavity)
       C    A quality of richness or variety
       D    A quality of evoking response

3           The sound elicited on percussion of the chest

4           The conceptual alternation of a chemical species (such as a molecule or ion) between two or more equivalent allowed structural representations differing only in the placement of electrons that aids in understanding the actual state of the species as an amalgamation of its possible structures and the usually higher-than-expected stability of the species

5       A    The enhancement of an atomic, nuclear, or particle reaction or a scattering event by excitation of internal motion in the system
         B    Magnetic Resonance

6             An extremely short-lived elementary particle

7             A synchronous gravitational relationshup of two celestial bodies (such as moons) that orbit a third (such as a planet) which can be expressed as a simple ratio of their orbital periods

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things. 

- Wild Geese, Mary Oliver